Shopping for Fruit Bowls

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Because fresh summer fruit isn't just good to eat — it's the best way to add color and personality to your kitchen.

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By Tim McKeough

In an otherwise unpredictable year, summer is beginning to deliver its annual bounty of fruits and vegetables. From fragrant peaches to sculptural squashes, their scents and colors fill the kitchen.

During that brief time before they’re consumed, they can be the visual focus of the room — especially if they’re displayed in a distinctive fruit bowl.

"Instead of a plant or flowers, the fruit acts as this welcoming element," said Barbara Sallick, a founder and the senior vice president of design at Waterworks and the author of "The Perfect Kitchen." "It's sort of like a piece of art."

Ms. Sallick uses a few different containers to show off fruit and vegetables on her kitchen table in Southport, Conn., including antique delft bowls and steel Krenit bowls with vibrantly enameled interiors, which she changes with the seasons.

Eye-catching accessories like that, she noted, are a good way to personalize a kitchen.

"I always think about how you layer a kitchen," she said. "When you add things, the kitchen becomes this very personal space."

Which materials work best? Ms. Sallick prefers ceramic and metal bowls, but almost any food-safe material — stone, wood, resin — will do.

How many fruit bowls should be out at the same time? One bowl will usually suffice, but grouping two or three together adds to the visual appeal. And "if I’ve just been to the market, I’ll usually need another," Ms. Sallick said.

Can you pile it high? "I like the pileup," Ms. Sallick said, as long as you keep softer fruits off the bottom.

Stoneware bowl by SIN

$84 at Still House NYC: 212-539-0200 or stillhousenyc.com

Elevated marble bowl

$150 at Jayson Home: 800-472-1885 or jaysonhome.com

Ceramic bowls with glazed interiors by Natalie Weinberger

From $80 each at March: 415-931-7433 or marchsf.com

Powder-coated steel bowl

$50 at MoMA Design Store: 800-851-4509 or store.moma.org

Ceramic bowl with bowl-shaped cork top to separate fruit and vegetables

$140 at Food52: food52.com

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